1. Field
The disclosure generally relates to an information transmission and service integration system and an information transmission and service integration method.
2. Description of Related Art
Along with the rapid development of the Internet, various convenient digital home applications and services (for example, tele-home care, remote monitoring, smart appliances, home surveillance, and video on demand, etc) have been developed. The digital home service proposed by the ECHONET consortium combines various front-end home devices, smart appliances, sensors, and back-end service providers, wherein a home gateway plays a very important role for establishing a communication channel between the internal home network and the external service network.
Through a home gateway, different home devices can communicate with each other and difference service providers' services. A service provider can provide more diverse services based on its computation and storage ability. To integrate home devices and remote services, a home gateway has to provide high flexibility in software and hardware extension, sufficient computation and storage capability, low maintenance cost, and simple operation process to allow device suppliers and service providers to make the concept of digital home service network a reality.
Thereby, a home gateway is attempting to be developed as an information integration platform such that a solution provider can develop a device interface to integrate a front-end home device and a service interface to integrate a back-end service system in the home gateway so as to establish an information transmission channel according to the application requirement. Accordingly, various convenient digital home applications and services can be developed.
However, according to the existing techniques, the device interfaces and service interfaces developed by different solution providers cannot work together in the same home gateway. Thus, regarding each new-coming device, the solution provider has to develop another device interface in the home gateway to integrate the device; and regarding each new-coming service provider, the solution provider has to develop another service interface in the home gateway to integrate the service system. With the lack of an autonomic device-service composition and integration ability, the solution provider has to re-establish the information communication channel between the device and the service provider every time when a new device or a new service provider joins the network.
In the past, some for-profit and non-profit companies and organizations set up an Open Service Gateway Initiative (OSGi) consortium, which includes various suppliers of system equipments, consumer electronics, and vehicles, such as IBM, Motorola, Nokia, Philips, Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba, Echelon, and BMW etc. The OSGi consortium expects to establish an open service platform in home gateway to allow devices and services provided by different providers to communicate with each other. In addition, for improving the maintenance capability of a distributed home service network, the OSGi consortium also establishes a remote management and deployment mechanism on this home service platform, such that a solution provider can deploy interfaces, application programs, and add-on services to a user-end home gateway through the Internet.
Besides the OSGi consortium, other international organizations, such as ECHONET, DLNA, and CELF, also propose their home service platforms to be applied to different information transmission and service integration.
Although a solution provider can provide digital home service solutions more conveniently and easily by an open service platform, the solution provider has to install necessary device interfaces and service interfaces in the home gateway and then implement their integration logics in advance according to the application requirements. Thus, the solution provider still has to maintain and manage the home gateway when a device interface or a service interface is changed, for example, a new device or a new service provider is added. Thereby, an autonomic management mechanism is needed to be developed.